


The Rain Kept Falling

by TheChoas



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: I'm Sorry, Love, M/M, Sad Ending, Sorrow, XiuChen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 05:39:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19100815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheChoas/pseuds/TheChoas
Summary: Perhaps one day the thunderstorm would come to an end.





	The Rain Kept Falling

The sky had been full of clouds all day long so that no single ray of sunshine had been able to touch the way too cold surface of earth’s ground. Many people were hiding inside their homes, huddled into big sweaters in front of lit fireplaces, drinking tea or coffee with their loved ones or sitting by themselves while reading a good book. Normally, Minseok was one of them – but not that day.  
Instead he was walking through the streets in the heavy rain, his clothes clinging tightly onto his body, outlining each and every curve and bone of it that was now certainly more visible than it had been just a year ago. Instead of running to his destination like others did, he was just slowly setting one foot in front of the other as he kept his gaze low, plastered onto the grey stones of the pavement under the soles of his shoes where water was already gathering since the rain was pouring down hard on it. The young man didn’t care about this fact at all – it was summer, the water was warm and even if it hurt his skin in the long run, he held out for as long as necessary, for as long as it would take him to reach his destination.

There was thunder roaring in the background, the flash of a lightning illuminating the almost black sky every other second, outlining the tall buildings in South Korea’s capital city that stood proudly in the horrible weather, harboring everybody who searched for refuge from the wetness pattering from the crying heavens. Some people were shielding themselves with their thin jackets when they passed by Minseok, running to get away from their fate as fast as possible but the younger man still kept walking in the slow pace.

He lifted his face from time to time to look up at the weeping clouds hanging above him. At some point, he even stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes with his face turned towards where the sun should be at the moment, feeling the wetness trailing down his skin that mixed his own salty tears with the droplets of rain. During times like this nobody was able to see how much his heart was shattering inside his chest, how bad he crumbled and broke down to the point where he wasn’t able to feel anything other than the unbearable pain spreading through his whole body. Nobody knew how much the young man fought with the urge of throwing himself onto the street and wait for the next car to finally end his suffering. Who would care anyway? The only person that mattered wasn’t with him anymore after all.

Minseok continued his way after some seconds of breathing through the agony growing inside him, not looking up after this once again.  
He had always loved it when the days were like this, even more than hot and sunny times. He had been the one that convinced Minseok to jump into puddles while there was a thunderstorm raging above them, pulling the older man outside with a loud laugh and telling him that he would be thankful once he grew old and bitter and only had these memories to make himself happy again. He had been the one who had chased Minseok as if they were nothing more than little children playing on the schoolyard, catching him and almost tackling him to the ground in process before he had wrapped the older man in his arms and kissed him as if there was no tomorrow while the rain kept falling around them. And Minseok might have been damned if anything else besides moments like this had mattered at all.

He was now shivering slightly, not because of the nonexistent coldness surrounding him but because of the goosebumps that always arose on his skin whenever he thought of the man he loved more than his whole own life. But it didn’t matter now – not anymore. But his brain still couldn’t help but recall everything they had been through together.  
How they had first met in a library after it had been closed down. Minseok had been too immersed in a book he had been reading, tucked into his usual corner, that he wasn’t to be seen by anybody – not even the librarian who always looked after everybody she had seen coming in – so that he hadn’t noticed it when nobody was around him anymore and that he didn’t hear the door falling shut and being locked. **He** , however, had basically lived there (being the son of the owner after all) and fell asleep in one of the way too comfortable armchairs that fateful evening, only waking up when somebody panicked because he was locked at the library overnight and couldn’t call anybody for help since he never took his phone with him because it disturbed him when he was caught up in words and structures of complicated sentences the young man had always been able to lose himself in. The unknown man had jumped up instantly when the guy, who was nothing more than a boy back then, knocked on the door over and over again in the hope that somebody, anybody, would hear him.

“Hey,” **he** had said in that soothing voice of his, scaring the poor soul who had never been this fast to spin around and press his back into the nearest wall to make himself as small as possible. The rest of it was history. The younger man had let him out with the spare key he always carried around for situations like this, smiling at the flustered stranger before he sent him off with a wave, a grin and some muttered words of, “Be careful, perhaps I won’t be around the next time.”  
After then they would always shyly glance at each other with coy smiles whenever they met at the same place for over half year until Minseok had finally gathered enough to courage to ask the man he desired out, getting an all too excited, “Of course!” as an answer when he suggested that they should go and watch a movie or something together.

 

Their first date had been wonderful to say at least. They had first went to the cinema, watching one of the biggest flops Minseok had ever seen but the other guy had made it bearable, funny even, with his breathed comments and sarcastic responses to what the actors on the screen did, maybe annoying each and everybody around them but it was endearing for Minseok so that he had not let the younger man go after the film was finished, holding out and offering him his hand as he suggested that they could go for a walk in the near park together that was covered in white and yellow twinkling lights since Christmas had been coming nearer back then.  
But as much as Minseok had wanted to admire them, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of the man walking by his side when said guy was watching their surroundings with sparkling irises and an amazed smile resting on his slightly opened lips. That was until he caught how his date was looking at him and made him stop in his tracks before he took ahold of the older man’s face and pulled him in for a sweet, short kiss before he had been able to say anything, leaving Minseok flustered and stuttering with a heavy blush grazing his cheeks.

Countless dates had followed after that. They had been going to fancy restaurants and small diners, for walks around the city, to the gym and after that to a pastry shop were they refilled all the calories they had burned. They would cook together and for each other on various occasions, surprise the other with chocolates or flowers, with stolen kisses and short messages sweetening their days. They even baked together sometimes what always ended with icing-filled making out sessions and sometimes even more on top of Minseok’s kitchen table. They had been together for almost four years before the love of Minseok’s life disappeared to never be seen again – as if somebody had blown out the only candle lighting up his world, the light around the young man had faded until he found himself in nothing but blinding darkness wherever he went.

Now that he had almost reached his destination, Minseok was crying harder than he had that whole day even if the tears had been flowing freely ever since he had woken up to a cold, empty bed. He had curled himself into a little ball as wave after wave of pain had washed over him once the realization that the other side of the bed would never be filled with the man he loved so much ever again. There were days in which Minseok was able to refuse the reality he eventually had to face – today was not one of them.  
Instead he had never been this aware of it ever before – not even when he had been at his lover’s funeral some weeks ago. Back then he had been too caught up in denial to break down when the coffin was buried under almost black earth, some single rose petals sprinkled on top of it and blessings muttered when the most beautiful person in this world was in the heavens again – the true home for any of the angels who were on this planet for a way too short period of time.

But now as he was stepping over the cemetery, only one of the dull gravestones visible for him, Minseok wanted to rip his heart out of his chest.  
He would never see him again.  
He would never tell him he love him again.  
He would never gather the man in his arms to keep him as close as possible again.  
He would never see the love of his life smile again.  
He would never hear his laugher or voice again.  
There wouldn’t be another rainy day during which they could jump into puddles like the little kids they still were at heart before they made out in the rain.

Minseok’s steps came to a halt when he stood in front of the only white marble that existed around here, the dark letters written into the hard surface made his legs weaker than they had ever been – this fragile that he fell to his knees and into the moist ground before he was even aware that his body had given out under him. A suppressed sob broke through his lips as he let his eyes roam over the name and the date in front of him, his heart cracking again and again until he was sure that it would stop to beat if another sting of hurt was surging through it.  
But it didn’t. He held out even after his heart was shattered enough that no glue in this world would be enough to pull it together again, even when his head sunk onto his chest when his shoulders heaved in hiccups and snivels and sobs as he tried to cope with all the feelings overpowering him.

_Kim Jongdae_   
_09-21-1992 to 04-06-2017_   
_Time passes, love remains._

As Minseok kneeled in front of the marble stone, he wanted nothing more than to just end his own pain to follow his love into the afterlife – and while his heart kept bleeding and the tears kept running, the rain continued to fall.


End file.
